Uniform EchoMail Quoting Style
A Proposal To The FidoNet Technical Standards Committee
As more and more new software appears on the network, it has
become evident that we need a universal method for quoting text
of previous messages in replies.
Because of the way quoted text must appear, it is necessary to
format said text with "Hard" <CR> characters, in order to keep
the block from drifting should the new text itself be quoted.
The following method should allow current and future programs
to properly identify and handle previously quoted material.
Newly quoted text should be preceeded by the a single space,
a greater than symbol ('>') and another space.
Optionally a field of initials may appear in front of the
greater than symbol, like this: " MR> ". If you allow the
initials to be inserted, they should only be inserted into
lines which have not been previously quoted. (in other words,
don't add initials to anything already quoted)
Successive quotes of previously quoted material should only add
a single ">" in front of the existing text, which may eliminate
the leading blank space.
Blank lines in quotes should remain blank (no '>' or initials).
Kludge lines, including tear lines and origins lines are not
normally quoted, but when they are - they must never be quoted
exactly - this definitely causes problems with other software!
